[Avodah] Habituation

[Michael Makovi]

Rn' Toby Katz was confused by my heter for a blind man to look at
photographs in Playboy. What I was trying to do was made an extreme
example: this man has 0% hirhur, and so he has 100% heter. He can look
at Playboy all day, because he'll get no hirhur whatsoever. The case
of a blind man looking at photographs sounds ridiculous, and it is -
that was precisely my intention. I was trying to find a case where
there is absolutely positively no hashah of hirhur whatsoever. The
hashash is so non-existent, that it doesn't even make sense to discuss
the case. To prohibit a blind man to look at photographs in Playboy
would just be the most outrageous pesaq ever. (Unless the fear was
that he'd look at them in public, and cause a hilul hashem. The fear
wouldn't be hirhur / hana'ah, however.)

R' Isaac Balbin asked for some clarifications on my intent in the following:

> I tend to prefer the positions that reconcile as much as possible.
> ...
> Furthermore, I prefer a few kelalim to many peratim - Occam's Razor.
> myself

What I meant was, that I prefer the explanation of the Talmud, Rambam,
Shulhan Arukh, etc., that is the simplest, that explains the most
number of laws and principles with the least amount of explanation or
peratim. The more kelalim that can explain the greatest number of
authoritative sources in the simplest way, this I will prefer.

Also, for me, real-life experience is also a valid datum. I will
prefer the explanation of halakhah that squares best with what I see
with my own eyes.

Obviously, this does NOT mean I am rejecting halakhah, or placing my
own real-life experience above the halakhah - halila!

I often prefer non-Ashkenazi rulings, for all these reasons. I
remember studying one sugya, I forget about what, in which another
sugya in the Gemara seemed to explicitly contradict it, saying the
exact opposite. Tosafot offered several very elaborate oqimtot, but
the Rif simply pasqened by one of the two sugyot and ignored the
other. The Ra'avad, commenting on the Rif, made a very tiny change in
girsa to the second sugya, making it agree with the first sugya that
the Rif pasqened as halakhah. I very very very much preferred the
Rif/Ra'avad solution to the Tosafot one; the Rif's solution resulted
in one single very simple straightforward halakhah, while Tosafot's
resulted in several elaborate and confusing oqimtot without a clear
bottom-line halakhah.

Now then, this doesn't mean I'm my own poseq. I DO have several rabbis
I direct my questions to. My whole Occam's Razor preference is mostly
just in theoretical limud, and not in ma'aseh. It also determines
whose halakhic opinions I follow, which rabbi I ask. I'm not pasqening
for myself, but instead, I choose my own poseq based on whose answers
I know will make sense to me. (Also, one of my rabbis is excellent for
being able to answer the same question in different ways, knowing
which of his students will accept what kind of answer. This rabbi of
mine knows me very well, and knows how to cherry-pink for me the
opinion that he knows I'll be able to accept. He has many students
from many backgrounds, and so he knows how to rule differently for
different people.)

And most any opinion, there's *someone* out there recent who pasqens
by it, as long you're willing to look beyond the Mishnah Berurah. For
me, for example, Rabbis Yosef Messas and Moshe Malka of Morocco (who
held that women have no obligation to cover their hair anymore) are
quite reliable, being both very recent and quite eminent. I consider
Moroccan rabbis to be no less legitimate than Eastern-European ones;
others will disagree, but I consider them to be just as "accepted" as
the Mishnah Berurah. So I'm not bothered by my relying on these
Moroccan rabbis. (Well, actually, I'm NOT relying on them, since I'm
not a married woman. But if I were one ... )

Speaking of Rabbi Messas, Rabbi Michael Broyde discusses him (and
quotes him at length too) in his recent article on hair covering:
http://www.traditiononline.org/news/_pdfs/0095-0180.pdf

> Should one consider doing away with Hilchos Yichud on this basis as well?
> R' Isaac Balbin

The difference with yihud is that it is a lo plug rabanan. The laws of
yihud are not a general application of the prohibition of hirhur /
hana'ah. Instead, they are a specific and explicit gezera that was
instituted. Therefore, my whole Occam's Razor preference does not
apply. By contrast, however, I've seen no recording of an explicit lo
plug gezera made against exposed hair. Now, the Gemara seems to
understand hair-covering as d'oraita, but it would appear, if I
understand correctly, that many rishonim nevertheless understood
hair-covering as an issue of d'rabanan or minhag or some such - dat
yehudit instead of dat moshe.

> There was a recent Psak
> that a blind man may use his hands to determines how a woman "looks" if
> that is important to him being able to determine that she is attractive to
> him for the purposes of marriage.
>
> R' Isaac Balbin

That was Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, my rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Hesder Petah
Tiqwa. I'd have to ask him to be sure, but IIRC I believe his heter
was based on the presumption that for this blind man, feeling people's
face is normal for him, and he gets no hana'ah from it. I'm not sure,
however, if he permits this only for the sake of shiddukh/marriage, or
if he permits blind men to feel women's faces in general. I.e., does
Rabbi Cherlow, like Rabbi Weinberg on qol isha, require a real
pressing need or hefsed? I don't know, but I think that in any case,
his primary basis for heter was that for the blind man, feeling a
woman's face is normal and not sexual.

> You quote R' Henkin's book below. Please re-read the section on (for
> example) the length of a skirt. Based on your thesis, there should not be
> such a shakla v'tarya. Today, it is commonplace for women to wear tight
> jeans and very short skirts. As a result *most* of us (!) don't have hirhur
> and the shok should be redefined.
>
> R' Isaac Balbin

I do believe that there should NOT be such shakla v'tarya about
tzniut. There is a case of a rabbi recently (within the past few
decades) prohibiting aliyah, because the Terumat ha-Deshen says that
there is no parnassah in Israel. Rabbi Haim David Halevi responded
that you cannot pasqen for 20th-century Israel based on a 15th-century
source. I feel the same way about the laws of tzniut; you cannot
determine what causes hirhur / hana'ah today based on what caused
these 500 years ago, or even 100 ago.

Neverthless, I would in fact prohibit tight jeans and short shorts.
After all, the express purpose of these is to cause hirhur /
hana'ah!!! The very reason a woman wears a bikini, for example, is to
cause hana'ah in men!!! Therefore, hergel cannot possibly mitigate the
issur. Hergel only works if it's just stam what people do, as in the
mimetic tradition of "Rupture and Reconstruction". But if the very
intention of the scanty-clothing is to cause hirhur, then hergel
cannot possibly mitigate it.

> Many people subscribe to statistics that the slightest intimacy
> between (unmarried) males and females today leads to the bedroom.
>
> R' Isaac Balbin

That's simply not true in my experience. In my own experience, having
attended a public high school, those who wish to have premarital sex
will have it regardless of intimacy between men and women, and those
who do not wish to have premarital sex will avoid it regardless of
intimacy. There are different kinds of unmarried individuals, who all
have VERY different desires and expectations. In my entire circle of
friends in high school, I don't know of a single person who had
premarital sex, because none of us were the kinds who wanted to have
it. We all had plenty of intimate social relationships with female
peers, but premarital sex was simply something we weren't seeking. In
my senior year, one of my friends had a girlfriend, and not long after
graduation, the two were married. This friend of mine knew exactly
what he had to do if he wanted to have sexual relations. Anything
extramarital was not an option.

In other words: I think that today, most everyone is so habituated to
sexuality, that the most important factor is not hirhur / hana'ah
anymore, but rather, your express and explicit intent and desires. My
friends who avoided sex had the same hirhur / hana'ah and hergel as
those who were having sex all the time. The difference between us was
NOT the degree of intimacy or habituation with the opposite sex. The
difference was rather, whether or not one consciously desired to have
premarital sex or not. For those in my circle of friends in high
school, premarital sex was simply not morally conscionable. We very
consciously and deliberately eschewed premarital sex, not for lack of
opportunities.

The rise in premarital sex is due NOT, I believe, to greater exposure
to the opposite sex. Rather, I believe, the issue is that society has
accepted premarital sex as acceptable and legitimate. It is not the
hirhur / hana'ah or hergel that is to blame; instead, I believe, it is
the lack of basic moral censure that is to blame.

Therefore: if we want to reduce premarital sex, I think the most
important thing to do today is NOT to dress more tzenua or have fewer
social relationships between men and women. This will do nothing. The
solution instead, I believe, is to foster a moral environment in which
people have firm moral principles against premarital sex.

Every day, a person might have plenty of desire to steal, but he
refrains from stealing because it is wrong, period. The objects to
steal are all in plain sight; there is no tzniut, and there is lots of
hirhur / hana'ah. What stops his theft is not concealing the objects,
hiding them from sight, but rather, his moral principles. Nowadays, we
must approach tzniut the same way, I believe. Everything is already in
sight, and we are used to it. What must be fostered is a refusal to
act on the exposure of sexuality, the same way one refuses to act on
the exposure of objects on store shelves.

How do we foster such an environment? First, it'd be nice if
television shows didn't glorify premarital sex so much. More tzenua
billboards would be nice as well. But besides that, I think children
need to be taught that premarital sex is simply not a moral option, is
simply not legitimate or conscionable. Parents need to have clear and
absolute moral principles, and inculcate them effectively. (Easier
said than done, perhaps. I'm not a parent, so what do I know?)

> Where do Chazal define a "platonic" woman?
> R' Issac Balbin

Okay, nowhere; for Hazal, no such thing exists. After all, Rambam says
women could only go outside once or twice a month!! But I still think
my basic principle applies: the more intimately two people know each
other, the more carefully one must guard against hirhur / hana'ah,
because less hirhur / hana'ah will more easily lead to sexual
relations. Two strangers on the street aren't going to have relations
just from looking at each other in the eye, but a married couple
conceivably might.

> I wonder why the Rambam according to your thesis
> should not have absolved homosexual males from all tznius issues relating
> to women? Lo Plug?
>
> R' Isaac Balbin.

That's a very interesting question, and I've never thought about it.
Perhaps homosexuals are just so absolutely abnormal, compared to
healthy individuals, that to permit them to act publicly with women
would be poresh min ha-tzibur? That is, in a Talmudic society where
men and women have NO social relationships AT ALL outside marriage, to
permit homosexuals to freely and unrestrictedly associate with women
publicly would just be outrageously divisive and obscene to the
public? It might be technically defensible, based on the technical
laws of tzniut, but even so, societally, it's just too obscene and
divisive.

Furthermore, to permit homosexuals to act in this way might perhaps be
seen as condoning other homosexual acts as well? That is, once you
start giving heterim to homosexuals based on their lack of hana'ah /
hirhur with women, perhaps the homosexuals will wrongly assume that
therefore, there is a heter to have relations with men too? They'll
wrongly believe that they can do whatever their sexuality tells them.
You've given them one heter based on their sexuality for women, so
they'll assume there are additional heterim too, based on their
sexuality for men.

Michael Makovi